Muhammad Ovais Ahmad

Kanban in Software Development: A Systematic Literature Review

Using of Kanban in software development is an emerging topic. This systematic literature review was conducted in order to analyze the current trend of Kanban usage in software development and to identify the obtained benefits and involved challenges. The search strategy resulted in 492 papers, of which 19 were identified as primary studies relevant to our research. The main reported benefits of using the Kanban method were improved lead time to deliver software, improved quality of software, improved communication and coordination, increased consistency of delivery, and decreased customer reported defects. The reported challenges included lack of knowledge and specialized training as well as various organizational issues. Additionally, suggested practices were extracted from the primary studies and summarized for guiding the practitioners interested in adopting Kanban. The findings of this literature review are intended for helping researchers and practitioners to gain a better understanding of the current state of Kanban usage in software development.

Factors affecting e‐government adoption in Pakistan: a citizen's perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that enable end‐user adoption of e‐government services in Pakistan, where these facilities are at a rudimentary stage.Design/methodology/approach – Following previous research on e‐government services adoption, this study employs the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model to examine the influential factors of the adoption and use of e‐government services in Pakistan from a citizen perspective. An online survey was conducted and a statistical descriptive analysis was performed on the responses received from 115 Pakistani citizens.Findings – In line with previous research, the findings show that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions and social influence are the factors that affect the users adoption of e‐government services in Pakistan. Furthermore, the results show that lack of awareness, user data privacy, lack of appropriate support and assistance hamper the process.Practical implications...

Student perceptions and attitudes towards the software factory as a learning environment

Industry needs graduates from universities having knowledge and skills to tackle the practical issues of real life software development. To facilitate software engineering students and fulfill industry need, the Department of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu, Finland, built a Software Factory laboratory (SWF) in 2012 based on Lean concept. This study examines factors in the SWF learning environment that affect learning of a SWF course by the students. It employs amended Computer laboratory Environment Inventory (CLEI) and Attitude towards Computers and Computing Courses Questionnaire instrument (ACCC) with two additional constructs: 1) Kanban board 2) Collaborative learning. The general findings indicate that SWF learning environment, collaborative learning and Kanban board play important role in software engineering students learning, academic achievements and professional skills gaining. The findings are helpful to develop a better understanding about learning environments. The information gathered in this study can also be used to improve the software engineering learning environment.

Comparing Requirements Decomposition Within the Scrum, Scrum with Kanban, XP, and Banana Development Processes

Context: Eliciting requirements from customers is a complex task. In Agile processes, the customer talks directly with the development team and often reports requirements in an unstructured way. The requirements elicitation process is up to the developers, who split it into user stories by means of different techniques. Objective: We aim to compare the requirements decomposition process of an unstructured process and three Agile processes, namely XP, Scrum, and Scrum with Kanban. Method: We conducted a multiple case study with a replication design, based on the project idea of an entrepreneur, a designer with no experience in software development. Four teams developed the project independently, using four different development processes. The requirements were elicited by the teams from the entrepreneur, who acted as product owner and was available to talk with the four groups during the project. Results: The teams decomposed the requirements using different techniques, based on the selected development process. Conclusion: Scrum with Kanban and XP resulted in the most effective processes from different points of view. Unexpectedly, decomposition techniques commonly adopted in traditional processes are still used in Agile processes, which may reduce project agility and performance. Therefore, we believe that decomposition techniques need to be addressed to a greater extent, both from the practitioners’ and the research points of view.

Insights into the Perceived Benefits of Kanban in Software Companies: Practitioners’ Views

In the last decade, Kanban has been promoted as a means for bringing visibility to work while improving the software development flow, team communication and collaboration. However, little empirical evidence exists regarding Kanban use in the software industry. This paper aims to investigate the factors that users perceive to be important for Kanban use. We conducted a survey in 2015 among Kanban practitioners in the LeanKanban LinkedIn community. The survey results consist of 146 responses from 27 different organisations, with all respondents being experienced in using Kanban. The results show that practitioners perceived Kanban as easy to learn and useful in individual and team work. They also consider organisational support and social influence to be important determinants for Kanban use. Respondents noted various perceived benefits for using Kanban, such as bringing visibility to work, helping to reduce work in progress, improving development flow, increasing team communication and facilitating coordination. Despite the benefits, participants also identified challenges to using Kanban, such as organisational support and culture, difficulties in Kanban implementation, lack of training and misunderstanding of key concepts. The paper summarises the results and includes a discussion of implications for effective deployment of Kanban before describing future research needs.

Comparing Communication Effort within the Scrum, Scrum with Kanban, XP, and Banana Development Processes

[Context]: Communication plays an important role in any development process. However, communication overhead has been rarely compared among development processes. [Objective]: The goal of this work is to compare the communication overhead and the different channels applied in three agile processes (XP, Scrum, Scrum with Kanban) and in an unstructured process. [Method]: We designed an empirical study asking four teams to develop the same application with the four development processes, and we compare the communication overhead among them. [Results]: As expected, face-to-face communication is most frequently employed in the teams. Scrum with Kanban turned out to be the process that requires the least communication. Unexpectedly, despite requiring much more time to develop the same application, the unstructured process required comparable communication overhead (25% of the total development time) as the agile processes.

Scaling Kanban for Software Development in a Multisite Organization: Challenges and Potential Solutions

In software development organizations, large-scale distributed projects pose many challenges, such as hierarchical requirements, large team size, and managing workflow. Agile methods, like Scrum, seem to have limitations in addressing those issues. Kanban offers an interesting alternative in this concern by setting work-in-progress (WIP) limits to manage flow and establishing visibility of requirements using a visual signaling system. However, only few empirical studies have investigated scaling Kanban for large organizations. To address this concern, a case study was conducted in a large multisite company to identify the challenges and possible solutions in scaling Kanban. During the study, defining WIP limits, coordinating with distributed teams, and dividing features between teams were found as major challenges. Setting WIP limits by common agreement between teams and visualizing product backlogs and teams on electronic board, with teams pulling features from the board, were found as possible solutions for overcoming the mentioned challenges.

Kanban in Software Engineering: A Systematic Mapping Study

Abstract Following a well-established track record of success in other domains such as manufacturing, Kanban is increasingly used to achieve continuous development and delivery of value in the software industry. However, while research on Kanban in software is growing, these articles are largely descriptive, and there is limited rigorous research on its application and with little cohesive building of cumulative knowledge. As a result, it is extremely difficult to determine the true value of Kanban in software engineering. This study investigates the scientific evidence to date regarding Kanban by conducting a systematic mapping of Kanban literature in software engineering between 2006 and 2016. The search strategy resulted in 382 studies, of which 23 were identified as primary papers relevant to this research. This study is unique as it compares the findings of these primary papers with insights from a review of 23 Kanban experience reports during the same period. This study makes four important contributions, (i) a state-of-the-art of Kanban research is provided, (ii) the reported benefits and challenges are identified in both the primary papers and experience reports, (iii) recommended practices from both the primary papers and experience reports are listed and (iv) opportunities for future Kanban research are identified.

Empirical Investigation of Scrumban in Global Software Development

Scrumban combines two Agile approaches (Scrum and Kanban) to create a management framework for improving software engineering practices. Scrumban is expected to override both Scrum and Kanban, as it inherits the best features of both. However, there is little understanding of the possible impact of Scrumban on software development in prior studies. This study first makes a comparison among Scrum, Kanban, and Scrumban and then investigates the impact of Scrumban on six major challenges of global software development. This study was conducted in a distributed project at two Software Factories in two universities in Finland and Italy. The results show that Scrumban could positively affect issues such as evenness of different sites, communication, and cultural issues as well as leveraging resources among sites. However, there are still few challenges that require alternative methodologies and tools other than Scrumban to be overcome.

An empirical study on the impact of Scrumban on geographically distributed software development

Coordination in software projects is a challenge, particularly when it comes to distributed software development (DSD). Agile software development is a well-known paradigm for improving software development; however, there is little understanding of its impact on DSD projects. This paper describes an empirical study conducted within two Software Factory settings in Finland and Italy to investigate how Scrumban can impact coordination in geographically distributed software development. It provides the results from a project case that applied Scrumban to develop a web-based application for Time-banking. This study shows that aspects of Scrumban, such as iterative development, enhanced visibility, and limited work-in-progress, would alleviate the challenges of leveraging resources, synchronization between distributed sites, communication, and culture. It also explains that technical and security issues in the coordination of distributed projects may demand for solutions other than Scrumban.